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Pashtuns

"Ethnic Afghan" redirects here. For the citizens of the modern state of Afghanistan, see Afghans.
"Pathan" and "Pakhtoon" redirect here. For other uses, see Pathan (disambiguation).
For the Pashtun language, see Pashto.

Pashtuns
پښتانه
Number of Pashtun tribal and religious men in Southern Afghanistan
Total population
c. 60–70 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
 Pakistan43,633,946 (2023 census)[a][2]
 Afghanistan15,000,000[b][1][3][4]
 India3,200,000 (2018)[c][5][6]
 Iran242,500 (2022)[7]
 United Kingdom200,000 (2015)[8]
 Germany150,800 (2021)[9]
 United States138,554 (2010)[10]
 Australia81,154 (2021)[11]
 Canada60,590 (2018)[12][verification needed]
 Tajikistan32,400 (2017)[13]
 Russia19,800 (2015)[14]
 Uzbekistan3,000 (2024)[15]
Languages
Pashto (in its different dialects: Wanetsi, Central Pashto, Southern Pashto, Northern Pashto),[16] Dari, Hindi-Urdu[17][18]
Religion
Predominantly Islam (mainly Sunni Islam)
Related ethnic groups
Other Iranian peoples

Pashtuns (/ˈpʌʃˌtʊn/, /ˈpɑːʃˌtʊn/, /ˈpæʃˌtuːn/; Pashto: پښتانه, romanized: Pəx̌tānə́;[19]), also known as Pakhtuns,[20] or Pathans,[d] are an Iranian ethnic group[20] primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan.[24][25] They were historically also referred to as Afghans[e] until 1964[31][32] after the term's meaning had become a demonym for all citizens of Afghanistan regardless of their ethnic group.[31][33]

The Pashtuns speak the Pashto language, which belongs to the Eastern Iranian branch of the Iranian language family. Additionally, Dari serves as the second language of Pashtuns in Afghanistan,[34][35] while those in Pakistan speak Urdu and English.[17][36] In India, the majority of those of Pashtun descent have lost the ability to speak Pashto and instead speak Hindi and other regional languages.[37][18][38]

There are an estimated 350–400 Pashtun tribes and clans with a variety of origin theories.[39][40][41] In 2021, Shahid Javed Burki estimated the total Pashtun population to be situated between 60 and 70 million, with 15 million in Afghanistan.[1] Others who accept the 15 million figure include British academic Tim Willasey-Wilsey[3] as well as Abubakar Siddique, a journalist specializing in Afghan affairs.[4] This figure is disputed due to the lack of an official census in Afghanistan since 1979 due to continuing conflicts there.[42]

They are the second-largest ethnic group in Pakistan and the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan,[43] constituting around 18.24% of the total Pakistani population and around 47% of the total Afghan population.[44][45][46] In India, significant and historical communities of the Pashtun diaspora exist in the northern region of Rohilkhand, as well as in major Indian cities such as Delhi and Mumbai.[47][48]

  1. ^ a b c Shahid Javed Burki (13 September 2021). "The wandering Pashtuns". The Express Tribune. Archived from the original on 11 March 2025. Demographers estimated the world's Pashtun at 60-70 million of which the vast majority now live in Pakistan. Of Afghanistan's current population of 38 million, the Pashtun account for less than a majority — 15 million — or 39 per cent of the total.
  2. ^ "TABLE 11 : POPULATION BY MOTHER TONGUE, SEX, and RURAL/URBAN – 2023 Census" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 October 2024.
  3. ^ a b Willasey-Wilsey, Tim (10 January 2023). "Tangled history: the Pashtun". Gateway House. There are 15 million Pashtuns in Afghanistan where they are the biggest and dominant ethnicity (...)
  4. ^ a b Siddique, Abubakar (January 2012). "Afghanistan's Ethnic Divides" (PDF). CIDOB Policy Research Project. There are some 15 million Pashtuns in Afghanistan (...)
  5. ^ Ali, Arshad (15 February 2018). "Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan's great granddaughter seeks citizenship for 'Phastoons' in India". Daily News and Analysis. Retrieved 2 November 2023. Interacting with mediapersons on Wednesday, Yasmin, the president of All India Pakhtoon Jirga-e-Hind, said that there were 32 lakh Phastoons in the country who were living and working in India but were yet to get citizenship.
  6. ^ "Frontier Gandhi's granddaughter urges Centre to grant citizenship to Pathans". The News International. 16 February 2018. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
  7. ^ "Ethnologue report for Southern Pashto: Iran (2022)". Retrieved 17 November 2023.
  8. ^ Maclean, William (10 June 2009). "Support for Taliban dives among British Pashtuns". Reuters. Retrieved 6 August 2009.
  9. ^ Relations between Afghanistan and Germany Archived 16 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine: Germany is now home to almost 90,000 people of Afghan origin. 42% of 90,000 = 37,800
  10. ^ 42% of 200,000 Afghan-Americans = 84,000 and 15% of 363,699 Pakistani-Americans = 54,554. Total Afghan and Pakistani Pashtuns in USA = 138,554.
  11. ^ "20680-Ancestry (full classification list) by Sex – Australia" (Microsoft Excel download). 2006 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 2 June 2008. Total responses: 25,451,383 for total count of persons: 19,855,288.
  12. ^ "Census Profile, 2016 Census - Canada [Country] and Canada [Country]". 8 February 2017.
  13. ^ "Ethnologue report for Southern Pashto: Tajikistan (2017)". Retrieved 17 November 2023.
  14. ^ "Perepis.ru". perepis2002.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 16 January 2017. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
  15. ^ Northern Pashtuns of Uzbekistan Joshua Project
  16. ^ Khan, Ibrahim (7 September 2021). "Tarīno and Karlāṇi dialects". Pashto. 50 (661). ISSN 0555-8158.
  17. ^ a b Hakala, Walter N. (2012). "Languages as a Key to Understanding Afghanistan's Cultures" (PDF). National Geographic. Retrieved 13 March 2018. In the 1980s and '90s, at least three million Afghans—mostly Pashtun—fled to Pakistan, where a substantial number spent several years being exposed to Hindi- and Urdu-language media, especially Bollywood films and songs, and being educated in Urdu-language schools, both of which contributed to the decline of Dari, even among urban Pashtuns.
  18. ^ a b Green, Nile (2017). Afghanistan's Islam: From Conversion to the Taliban. University of California Press. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-520-29413-4. Many of the communities of ethnic Pashtuns (known as Pathans in India) that had emerged in India over the previous centuries lived peaceably among their Hindu neighbors. Most of these Indo-Afghans lost the ability to speak Pashto and instead spoke Hindi and Punjabi.
  19. ^ David, Anne Boyle (1 January 2014). Descriptive Grammar of Pashto and its Dialects. De Gruyter Mouton. p. 76. ISBN 978-1-61451-231-8.
  20. ^ a b Minahan, James B. (30 August 2012). Ethnic Groups of South Asia and the Pacific: An Encyclopedia: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781598846607.
  21. ^ James William Spain (1963). The Pathan Borderland. Mouton. p. 40. Retrieved 1 January 2012. The most familiar name in the west is Pathan, a Hindi term adopted by the British, which is usually applied only to the people living east of the Durand.
  22. ^ Pathan. World English Dictionary. Retrieved 1 January 2012. Pathan (pəˈtɑːn) – n a member of the Pashto-speaking people of Afghanistan, Western Pakistan, and elsewhere, most of whom are Muslim in religion [C17: from Hindi]
  23. ^ von Fürer-Haimendorf, Christoph (1985). Tribal populations and cultures of the Indian subcontinent. Handbuch der Orientalistik/2,7. Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 126. ISBN 90-04-07120-2. OCLC 240120731. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
  24. ^ Cite error: The named reference Caldwell2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  25. ^ Cite error: The named reference Brit-Pashtun was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  26. ^ Sims-Williams, Nicholas. "Bactrian Documents from Northern Afghanistan. Vol II: Letters and Buddhist". Khalili Collections: 19.
  27. ^ "Afghan and Afghanistan". Abdul Hai Habibi. alamahabibi.com. 1969. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
  28. ^ "History of Afghanistan". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 22 November 2010.
  29. ^ Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah (Firishta). "History of the Mohamedan Power in India". Persian Literature in Translation. Packard Humanities Institute. Archived from the original on 11 February 2009. Retrieved 10 January 2007.
  30. ^ "Afghanistan: Glossary". British Library. Archived from the original on 2 July 2010. Retrieved 15 March 2008.
  31. ^ a b Huang, Guiyou (30 December 2008). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature [3 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-56720-736-1. In Afghanistan, up until the 1970s, the common reference to Afghan meant Pashtun. . . . The term Afghan as an inclusive term for all ethnic groups was an effort begun by the "modernizing" King Amanullah (1909-1921). . . .
  32. ^ "Constitution of the Kingdom of Afghanistan – Wikisource, the free online library". en.wikisource.org. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
  33. ^ Tyler, John A. (10 October 2021). Afghanistan Graveyard of Empires: Why the Most Powerful Armies of Their Time Found Only Defeat or Shame in This Land of Endless Wars. Aries Consolidated LLC. ISBN 978-1-387-68356-7. The largest ethnic group in Afghanistan is that of Pashtuns, who were historically known as the Afghans. The term Afghan is now intended to indicate people of other ethnic groups as well.
  34. ^ Bodetti, Austin (11 July 2019). "What will happen to Afghanistan's national languages?". The New Arab.
  35. ^ Chiovenda, Andrea (12 November 2019). Crafting Masculine Selves: Culture, War, and Psychodynamics in Afghanistan. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-007355-8. Niamatullah knew Persian very well, as all the educated Pashtuns generally do in Afghanistan
  36. ^ Saddiqa, Ayesha (2018). "The Role of Pashto (as L1) and Urdu (as L2) in English Language Learning". Linguistics and Literature Review. 4 (1): 1–17. doi:10.29145/2018/llr/040101 (inactive 1 November 2024). ISSN 2221-6510.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)
  37. ^ "Hindu Society and English Rule". The Westminster Review. 108 (213–214). The Leonard Scott Publishing Company: 154. 1877. Hindustani had arisen as a lingua franca from the intercourse of the Persian-speaking Pathans with the Hindi-speaking Hindus.
  38. ^ Krishnamurthy, Rajeshwari (28 June 2013). "Kabul Diary: Discovering the Indian connection". Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. Retrieved 13 March 2018. Most Afghans in Kabul understand and/or speak Hindi, thanks to the popularity of Indian cinema in the country.
  39. ^ Romano, Amy (2003). A Historical Atlas of Afghanistan. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 28. ISBN 0-8239-3863-8. Retrieved 17 October 2010.
  40. ^ Syed Saleem Shahzad (20 October 2006). "Profiles of Pakistan's Seven Tribal Agencies". Jamestown. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  41. ^ "Who Are the Pashtun People of Afghanistan and Pakistan?". ThoughtCo. Retrieved 14 August 2022.
  42. ^ "Hybrid Census to Generate Spatially-disaggregated Population Estimate". United Nations world data form. Archived from the original on 17 May 2020. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  43. ^ "Pakistan – The World Factbook". Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  44. ^ "Afghanistan". The World Factbook (2025 ed.). Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 24 September 2022. (Archived 2022 edition.)
  45. ^ "South Asia :: Pakistan – The World Factbook – Central Intelligence Agency". Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 24 February 2019.
  46. ^ "What Languages Are Spoken in Pakistan?". World atlas. 30 July 2019.
  47. ^ Canfield, Robert L.; Rasuly-Paleczek, Gabriele (4 October 2010). Ethnicity, Authority and Power in Central Asia: New Games Great and Small. Routledge. p. 148. ISBN 978-1-136-92750-8. By the late-eighteenth century perhaps 100,000 "Afghan" or "Puthan" migrants had established several generations of political control and economic consolidation within numerous Rohilkhand communities
  48. ^ "Pakhtoons in Kashmir". The Hindu. 20 July 1954. Archived from the original on 9 December 2004. Retrieved 28 November 2012. Over a lakh Pakhtoons living in Jammu and Kashmir as nomad tribesmen without any nationality became Indian subjects on July 17. Batches of them received certificates to this effect from the Kashmir Prime Minister, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed, at village Gutligabh, 17 miles from Srinagar.


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